Raven's Library
by apatheticking
Summary: The life of Raven and Richard Grayson was never dull, but maybe that is to be expected from a team living in a giant T. Maybe something more will come of sharing a head? Rated M ironically.
1. Chapter 1

**I started writing romance stories in lovecraftian games, now I'm in DC comic territory. Still writing romance stories! Shouts out to DC and CN for making my childhood, and a hardy screw you to the dev team of Teen Titans Go, for bending the original backwards and re-enacting the rape of nanking. Now with the story.**

Dick Grayson was no stranger to failure. From an early age with his mentor, he had learned every conceivable type of failure. His relationship with his girlfr...Ex-Girlfriend Kori, the hundreds of broken bones, bruises, lacerations, during his training. more on the field, his failure to apprehend Slade Wilson. Dick Grayson was a failure.

Failures are strong. Nightwing, because of his failures. Learned. He was strong, fast, and talented. He had done things, he learned things that no other mortal (or otherwise) had ever experienced. A monument to his failures formed under his belt in a team of (formerly) adolescent teen superhumans, millions of lives saved, and hundreds of dangerous criminals locked away. He had taken a dark and rigorous road, but he had come out on top where he was finally able to create a tangible thread of positive change in the world. He had done more than simply exist, he actively improved the lives of his fellow man. Dick Grayson to Robin to Nightwing, all in under two decades. This however was not at the forefront of his mind.

Years had passed, and after the incident in Tokyo, his girlfriend at the time was becoming more and more territorial. There was an instance where after a common thug pulled a pistol on "Robin", nothing out of the ordinary. However when the first shot was fired, Starfire took it personally, and fired a starbolt into the handgun, melting the gun, igniting the bullets, and effectively mutilating the assailant. The hand was later removed.

"Star, what have you done?" he had asked later in the day, from the sound-insulated rooms of the tower. "He would have killed you! _My_ Robin! _My_ Boyfriend!" she had become overly possessive. There was no depth, no real reason that the Tamaranian should have been so, attached, to every little step Robin took. She absolutely loomed over him, making sure that if he stepped on a pin, the pin would be horrifically mutilated and brought to justice (this actually happened, the floor beneath the pin had been annihilated as well, cyborg spent the next two hours fixing the laundry room floor). Eventually, it had to end. Richard felt _suffocated._ In a total of three months, she had mutilated a thug, broken more walls and floors than the tower managed to have over petty injuries, and "saving" him in ways that ended up injuring him worse than what he was being saved from. The breaking point came when the HIVE managed to break into a bank vault, and rather than taking a hit from Jynx, Kori decided to blast a hole in the vault wall, and throw Robin through it, molten metal and shrapnel digging into his back.

Third degree burns, and lacerations aside, this had to stop. Robin called Star to his room one week afterwards. "Kori, I need you to give me some space when we are working, I like that you're so concerned but I ju-" he never got to finish. "Richard, we are the couple no? It is my job to care for you, if you get hurt I just.." She began to choke up behind her fluorescent green eyes, a sign she was both angry and emotionally unstable. Richard did not know what to do, this was simply too much, too overbearing. "Star, this is too much! You're blowing up walls because I stub my toe, I need space!".

"You mean to work?" Kori asked with a cocked head. "No". It's all he could say before she had grunted, tears flying and a single fist sending Dick through the nearest wall, in full view of the other titans. Robin trying to stand up in the debris of the living room, the other titans trying to figure out if they were being attacked, and the wails of Starfire flying to her room disturbed the thoughts of Raven, who didn't even flinch, she had felt it in Robin's mind, and moved accordingly to her room to preserve her inner peace. The wails of Koriand'r didn't cease until dawn the following day, and Richard had fractured his arm and cracked three ribs, much to Raven's chagrin. She had to heal all of the serious injuries. Raven, as far as Dick was concerned, was the only real woman in his life now that Star refused to acknowledge his existence. She was closer than his best friend, they shared minds for god's sake. When the break-up had occurred, Raven heard it before it happened. " _Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit"._ Her queue to leave. She heard the thought, felt his panic, and sent to him the single thought. " _Someone has a case of the Mondays"._ Cyborg and Beastboy didn't understand how breaking bones was funny.

Three nights later, Raven had seen Robin leave his room, and walk across the threshold of the living room to pour himself some juice. A single file of Slade Wilson under his arm. It was at this time he left town for a few months, leaving a note outside Raven's door.

Raven,

Now's a good of time as any to restart. I trust you the most with the team in my absence. I'll be back in two months time, tell Vic he's in charge. Don't worry, I just need to figure some things out. If Kori leaves her room, don't mention me, it seriously triggers her mood swings. I'll see you soon.

-Dick

She sighed. What a moron he was. Not to say Raven didn't love her friend Richard. He was intelligent, strong willed, always in control, and the only other person she could really be herself with him. Though she didn't love him for this. She loved him for his flaws. He was loyal to a fault, overly analytical, a smart ass, and on top of it all, petty. Love being such a strong word, but it was what she felt. A world without him was one without laughter for her. Who else would taunt her in German over tea? They shared a mind, and so he never really could leave her, but a physical presence was much more tangible, mental messages and feelings were essentially texts.

Two months came and went, and Raven mostly kept to her library. A euphemism to her room that Dick (the only man allowed in her room) created. What could she say, she found it funny when he entered her room, and without a word took a novel from the self, walked over to her and said "I'd like to rent this book mrs librarian!". The phrase was very apropos, ninety percent of her room was literature. She liked to read. Other than the psychic and demonic powers, she was another human (mostly) being who liked books. Often Dick would leave her room with a novel, pour over it's contents, and talk about it with her later, when he wasn't pouring himself into research.

He would return in a blue suit this time, blue suit, new name. Hell, he had a new body. He was taller, broader, and more agile. Nightwing, as he was called now, was a new person. Not to Raven. He came into her room first to say hello. "Robin?" she asked. "Nightwing now my dear Raven" he replied. "You couldn't at least turn from birds?". He laughed, and she giggled at how he even grew in voice. She felt warmth radiate from his mind, and he scooped her up from her chair in a massive hug. She was unaccustomed to such affection, but the warmth he projected was overbearingly pleasant. He was like a human fireplace, radiating comfort and good intent. She intoned "Ich habe dich vermisst". "Ich habe gehört, dass, und ich habe dich auch vermisst." He walked out and greeted the rest of the team.

In such a short time he had become so much more, and still Starfire hated what he was with a passion. Tamaraneans apparently knew how to hold grudges. Perhaps it was the fact that he moved on, perhaps she just was resentful of the break-up herself. It was childish regardless. Nightwing was new, the grudge was old. Raven loved watching it unfurl. The jealousy that Kori radiated, Vic's determination, Gar's lighthearted earnesty, and Nightwing's obsessive power. They were the avatars of emotions she was not allowed to free. Years prior to today she had decided to let her emotions run wild. The problem was a place. Raven's emotions actually had destructive power, her anger alone could vaporize entire neighborhoods. That in mind, she researched areas void of life. She considered places expendable, places that could not be altered by her pure energy. She found Tunguska, and decided that she would leave there. Teleportation took mere minutes through void and ether, and she was in the Tunguska valley, Russia. It was hit by a Meteor in the early nineteen hundreds, and was abandoned. Perfect. Upon arrival, she let it all out. No control, no emotional grasp. Raven exploded. Literally. Her astral form grew, emotions burning the floor beneath her, and the pebbles at her feet quickly turning to dust, then glass. Her energy, rage, passion, sadness, all of it was flung from her form. She screamed and cried and threw her hands round as dark energy flew about her. Trees were torn apart, and everything in a ten meter radius was turned to dust.

It was beautiful. The shades of black and the powers that she had so long restrained had been identified and freed. They ran wild among the foliage, decaying and burning the woods, the ground was being burned, even the rocks were being destroyed. She had created a beach from the pebbled river in fifteen minutes. Raven refused to stop now. Rage flowed free as her energy pushed trees hundreds of feet into the air, happiness grew new grass, and hatred, pure and simple corroded it away in venom. Her emotions were free. They created and destroyed. There was something wrong as panic was becoming apparent. She was high on her own emotion, it was not adhering to her power, it was tearing her body apart. black energy literally forced its way from her mouth, and ran a trail of pure black power a mile northward, a trail of hot earth was left in its wake.

Raven struggled to get it under control. Was this what the others felt? The heat in her chest as she sobbed and screamed? The sinking as panic manifested? Was this what being human was like? Had she restrained her humanity to the point where the release destroyed so much? She fought to pull it all back in. She thought long and hard while sucking the power back in. A rift had opened into space, and terrible things began to reach through, she closed it with minimal effort, and kept pulling herself back. After three days of restraining fifteen minutes of emotion, Raven was light on her feet, and sobered from her release. She was thinking of Richard. How did he hide that feeling? She had a newfound respect for her peers. Of course their emotions could not emulate a meteor strike, but to restrain the internal war was admirable, to put it lightly. She remembered how some emotions stirred when she thought of Dick. Happiness grew entire trees from saplings, where an enigmatic feeling wrapped around the trees and snapped them like twigs. Her inner emotions all created or destroyed something when Dick came to mind, and it felt wonderful. She felt enlightened by the experience, but also terrified of her _smallest_ release. Surely if she had kept her power going for hours, she may have totaled all of Russia. She warped home, and went to sleep. A warm glass of tea sat by a note.

-I detected a hint of angst from your room, you weren't here. Made tea just in case you returned. Feel better, you know where I am if you want to talk.

-R

She smiled as sleep took her. When she awoke, he was in the living room. Three-thirty AM. "We're all mad here Alice!" he calls out to her, eyes trained on Carroll. She drawls softly "you should ask before you take my books".

"Yes, but I come in so often to chat that I essentially live with you." He is so ignorant, and she adores that cocky-boy-scout charm. It's arrogant, and it seethes with earnesty. She smiles and sits by him.

"You're troubled Dick"

He grunts.

"You're reading about Slade, what's wrong"

"None of your business" he mumbles. She looks into his eyes

his thoughts only read " _fuckfuckfuckfuck"_

"Your mind has quite the mouth"

"You should hear Kori's"

She looks again, his other eye is swollen shut. She looks into his head, and sees him speaking to Starfire, she feels the honesty he is expressing, and the panic as she swings a fist. Ironically it misses, but the bits of wall impact his eye as he dodges left.

"What did you say?" She demands

"I told her I was sorry that we did not work out"

"I'm telling you, mondays are not the day to do these things!"

"It's _Tuesday_ now". She giggles, and raises her hand to heal the eye.

"I'll be putting this back in your library now, if you don't mind." He says rather than asking. Raven makes another cup of tea, and walks back to her room. The door opens, and there he is. Four in the morning, across her bed, snoring softly with Carroll in his hand. The healing really exhausts the body, so she does not mind. She steps towards him to collect the book, and ends up resting right behind him. She wakes up with his arm draped over her shoulder, warmth and comfort radiating from a peaceful mind. He falls out of bed, scrambles off when he realises where he was, and who he was sleeping with. Raven chortles, then her cheeks feel light. Had she really slept next to her leader, friend...Richard? "Huh"

 **So I loathe everything I make in the long run, but you should all tell me how it is so I can loathe it more or less. I just like the catharsis of writing down stories. Maybe some of you will enjoy it. Maybe not. Either way, if you made it to the end, I'm so flattered that I could at least hold any attention. Tell me if I should continue the story!**


	2. Chapter 2

**This is fun actually. The other story's cannon is so somber and straightforward, so this gives me the opportunity to make something (almost), more human. Looks like I'm getting (mostly) favourable reviews. For that one anonymous someone (s)he should offer constructive criticism, because I'm so very vain. Tee hee. Thanks the the community who have enjoyed the stuff I make. You guys are keeping my spirits up.**

She lays silent in her bed. It feels..off. Her meditation only makes her more aware of the formerly familiar warmth dissipating into the fibers of her sheets. It's painful to her, parts want to cry almost. She delves deeper into consciousness (chuckling at the irony of obtaining meta-awareness by abandoning conventional varieties) to escape the depressive chill of loneliness. Her leader. Her friend was gone, and Raven hated it.

Deep in the fathoms of her mind, Raven walked through rows of literature. Usually the library is empty, save for one particular emotion burning through walls of tomes trying to escape. She has most of her emotions focused into the very walls. Raven's library is held under the iron key of her concentration, not one aspect can escape, lest the library burn to the floor. The usual guard isn't even posted.

"Show yourself fear" she calls out. A single shadow curls from the wall, Raven is clad in an impenetrable veil of darkness that clouds all vision. "What are you doing here hatred?" she mutters. This one is usually hidden in the walls, passively lashing out in her mind. It seems to vibrate with laughter, a single tendril of black vapor pointing to four glowing eyes, then down a hallway. This mindscape can go on forever should it please Raven. The last man to search her mind seemed to find that it was futile. She was master here, and she was the only thing there. Save one idiot out of uniform.

Ever since their minds were joined by her empathic bond, he was able to manifest his thoughts into her dreams. It was _horrid._ He really couldn't lie while he was sleeping, though she was totally in control. She always avoided him in this catatonic state for the sake of his privacy. Something was different though. His manifestation was more prominent. Usually he occupied a darkened study room in the annex of the library. A single steel chair, a stool on the other side, and a giant evidence table built to be an all in one medical table, interrogation room, and evidence analyzation station. It was the only place he would venture, and it was always between the sizes of small and moderately spacious. Not this time. There was what sounded like music down the furthest hallway. Low trumpets and muffled drum lines leading to explosions of tambourines. Admittedly, her curiosity was peaked.

Raven hovered down a hallway, and down a huge rusted stairway obscured by stacks of novels, her favourite novels. Nightwing didn't want her here. Normally, she would acquiesce to his need for privacy, but she started hearing sobbing, and decided that the man needed help. She blew down the wall, and descended the stairwell. Ink and shadow began to brighten with low tones of yellow and red and green and purple. Red faced clowns stood suspended at the bottom, in perfect cheerful animation. Creepy? Yes. Deterring? not in the slightest. A carnival tent sat in a vast expanse, as if it was a shining lighthouse in a mysterious dark void. She entered.

There was a hallway, narrow and colorful and covered with adverts for " _The Amazing Flying Graysons!"._ They were scratched and tattered, save the silhouette of the boy, who was painted red. Raven shuttered, Dick had issues. She proceeds down the hallway, which seems even longer each time she blinks. There is laughter in the air, and gunfire. She steps forward, and finds the floor is littered with shell casings and broken rope. She closes her eyes to steal calming breaths.

She is in the main tent, and there are no seats, no seating. Nightwing stood in the center of the chamber, brandishing a pen, and scribbling furiously on sheets of paper. A cut safety net hangs in tatters on the table. Raven reaches for him.

"No Rae, I didn't want you to see me like this". He's crying.

"You know we slept together last night?" she sputters, wanting to sidestep her intrusion.

He turns around and looks at her. There is a bullet in his shoulder, and every breath causes a small drop of blood to fall on his papers. Tears stroll down his eyes and down onto the files of two criminals. They read " -Deathstroke/Slade" and "Unknown-Joker". Even in nightmares, he is obsessed.

"I hadn't slept so well in years"

"You snore"

Chuckles.

"I don't know what to do anymore"

She thinks, and thinks, and thinks some more about what to say. Her emotions come out of the walls, whispering various vile and kind things. She doesn't want to follow them. Logic before feeling. Though one emotion tells her what she wants to hear. She hears clearly what her soul desires more than any one course of action.

"Come to my room, wake up and come to me"

Her heart is pounding, she is silently praying he won't remember this. A small shape in the corner of the room clad in white bounces briefly before fading back into the tapestry.

"Rae I can't get involved again. I won't hurt another teammate. You're my best friend, I don't want to lose you"

He really can't censor himself here. He is absolutely _candid._

Raven steps forward, dropping her cloak to the floor and bringing her arms around his torso. She shakily wraps her arms around his broad chest, and presses her cheek to his chest. His reaction is slow but fluid. He begins shaking, then he stops, wraps his broad arms around her, and squeezes her lightly, as if he was trying to preserve the position in a mould. His hand moves down her hair, and she breathes in a scent not unlike sandalwood.

"You smell like your cologne even here, it's obnoxious"

"But I wear it because I know you like it"

Her thoughts race at a rapid pace, outrunning the simple implication of the statement. She looks up at him for a moment. His face is blank, staring fixedly at the walls of leather bound literature, no longer laughing red walls and the circus.

She awakens from her introspection in her bed. Something large and warm is pressed to her back, and a arm is constricting her midsection with the slightest pressure. Her mind is quiet. What is happening can not be good. They must discuss this. They can't let this progress. Richard was here though. He was here and his lips were pressed softly to the back of her head and his arms held her in a way that made her core warm. There was a familiarity here that she adored. The closeness that can only come with the one person she trusts with the literal hell she imprisons in her mind.

Where she can not create her own stability, he is the surrogate. Her rock. A voice rings in her head, clearly and candidly

"If you were to roll to face him his lips would be right there"

No.

The thought though burned her cheeks. A mental note sent the girl in white deep into the confines of the library. He breathed softly, warm air hitting the back of her head.

Maybe.

The voice returned in full force, against all better judgement and all restraint. This voice was clear and simple. It was not inhibited by any emotional barriers.

"You deserve him. You know how he feels and still your inability to deal with complication as adults do inhibits your happiness with the one being able to do this for you. what do you _feel?_ Look into his emotions. LOOK!" it is speaking slowly but condescendingly. The monks of her plane of existence denied her any access to any emotional stimuli, she was a perfectly compartmentalized being. All facets of personality potentially dangerous to existence locked away in little books and hallways to never surface in the material plane. An unfeeling labyrinth of infinite ideas that occupy the emotions. She wants this though. Truly needs to affirm that this gnawing voice is right. Her conclusion is on the lips of a hypothesis, daring her to test the boundary. She dares not. She sleeps instead, the warmth of Richard Grayson lulling her mind into a euphoric trance. She thinks once more between yawns.

Yes, just not now.

 **I'm still trying to tweak how I present the characters and the world. Erring on the side of a slow boil rather than jumping right into lemons and juicy romance detail. I have mixed feelings about the chapter though. I just moved into my university dorm, so I haven't had much time to really sit and fine tune my work. That is me justifying this stump of a chapter. Anyway, thank you for your continued support! Please give me your (constructive) criticism and I'll see when I can add another chapter.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Time for another chapter. Hopefully this one is less of a disappointment, but such things come in bursts for me. Uni is pretty undramatic, just how I like it, but I haven't had time to really sit and write down my ideas. Currently I'm starting this at midnight on the twenty-sixth, so you guys have a frame of reference how long it takes me to make these. I won't keep you though.**

Richard liked to keep his desk polished and clean. Case files were in a cabinet drilled into the desk's underside next to a small drawer where a series of interrogation tools were stored. The chair directly in the North face of the room was locked in place by a series of small metal bars that were meant to maximize discomfort. The more dangerous criminals were unpredictable, so all file cabinets were kept in an advanced vacuum seal, with biometric security. If any attempt by a meta-human was made in the room, there was a drop down plexiglass dome that could drop down on the subject. The glass itself was charmed by numerous magical runes and markings. Dick was thorough.

Still for all of his fastidiousness, his absolute compulsion to be the optimal being, he still couldnt manage to compare to the sheer power of one of the major leaguers like Clark. More so than Clark, _Bruce._ Superman was, for any reason, a god. He was the last of a monstrous race capable of tearing entire planets apart with sheer strength. He couldn't stand up to that kind of power. Bruce was different though. He didn't understand. Bruce, the Batman, a man. As the Earth's most powerful asset, should have stood no more threat to the Superman, than the Earth's most powerful termite. Bruce could kill him though. The Batman could very well destroy all of the league should he wish. He was an apex being to Dick. He hated it. No matter what he did, no matter what method, strategy, technology Dick used, Bruce was better. Better in every way. It's why he left.

After being shot, the gravity of living as the apprentice of Batman hit him. Not the advantage, but the fact that he couldn't be autonomous. He was no more than a shadow, cleaning up the trash his mentor threw him. He needed to become the Master. This rivalry let Nightwing grow in so many respects. When he finally dawned the new alias, even Bruce approved. He was almost an equal. Clark gave him the idea, but Bruce was the motivation. Combined, Richard Grayson became stronger, faster, smarter, and better than his former avian identity.

He was alone though. In the process of becoming a major leaguer, he sold his soul to his work. Sure the form improved, the toys were better, his mind was like a razor, but he was a husk. He lost his team in his obsession, becoming a leader in name only. The only one he really had was her. She really was a mind trip. Literally.

It could be said that Raven saved him from himself. Linking minds was a bit too intimate, he admitted, but once it was done, their friendship flourished. It was like marriage, mental joining. Not only mental. Their _souls_ were locked together. Almost locked as tight as the cabinets of his interrogation room.

They both remember the mind joining vividly. Not as a memory, but as a sensation. Raven closed her eyes and suddenly every thought and memory exploded into the other's head, every minute detail and sensation flooded in. Raven began to grimace as she started seeing the world through his mind, and Robin began to see the aether flowing through existence. They were merging.

Raven began to erect the mental barricades, surely if he saw everything he would go mad. Some things she refused to acknowledge. She began to materialize walls of the only material that could hold this infinite jest of idea. She began filling paper after paper with thoughts and feelings. Journals started from dozens, turned to hundreds, then thousands. The distinct feeling of pain was pounding behind her eyes as powerful memories and emotions exploded into the books, taking on hues of red and black and reeking of blood and tears. Raven began to sob in the recesses of her mind as she expelled the dark memories of Dick Grayson's life from her mind. Torrents of black ink spilling from her into books, the books began to overwhelm her, so her emotions built walls. The walls began to rapidly expand as the books filled the shelves. Soon enough there was a set of halls with the journals. Her intelligence rejoiced at all of the new material, Raven however was still struggling to maintain her sanity. There was so much _pain._

Robin remembered seeing black. He was looking into an infinite void of inky black that would shift and stir like an ocean. There was so much of it, so much blackness that would shift into shapes, and moan out to him. Dick wouldnt touch it, but the dark wanted to touch him. As he began to be pulled closer into the void, walls made of paper and fabric began to curtain off his vision. He saw glimpses of a young girl sitting in the void, eyes wide shut. Her pupils were looking nowhere, but it was obvious she was focused. Men in cloaks stood around her with portions of chain, seals adorning their robes. The sadness of such ceremony hit Dick with the force of one who never really experienced emotion. There was confusion and an onslaught of a tight feeling. This was the repression of his best friend. He then saw a flash of light as the curtains began to smoke, and the silhouette of a burning city flashed before his mind, a giant was crushing buildings in his wake, and women's blood spilled on the curtain.

When it began to ease, stillness began to set in. The small hallways were now vast anterooms and lounges. There were hundreds of passages, and thousands of halls that all led nowhere. The pages turned and expanded into infinity. The facets of Raven even faded into the pages as guardians.

Catatonia was being spread about both. Subconsciously both Raven and Richard were keeping the details of their lives hidden, the greater boundaries out of reach. When it was over, the two of them sat before the table in Dick's interrogation room, and didn't leave for three days.

"So you're Richard Grayson? The protegee of the playboy billionaire?"

"You make me sound so modest".

"Your public image really fits you"

"You should see my private one"

chortles all around.

It was odd to laugh after such an event. To be fair, it was odd for either of them to laugh in earnest. For Richard, he had not really laughed in years. Raven, almost a decade. When they chuckled, Dick's voice jumped an octave, Raven's giggle caused the coffee table to jump for a moment. More laughs.

Now they were in bed together, again. She didn't mind. She awoke to thoughts of "I could get used to this" which scared her. The contentment began to wash over once again though, and Raven just sighed as the warmth of Richard's arms encompassed her again.

Richard didn't open his eyes when he heard the sigh. For a moment he considered that he should block off his mind to Raven so she couldn't hear him. She was breathing softly, and her nose nuzzled into his chest as he began to heat up profusely. She was always there for him, and she was too invaluable for him. They were best friends longer than the others, and he valued her as the anchor that kept him from flying off into his files forever.

He was in the interrogation room for exactly sixty hours, twenty minutes, and twenty seven seconds. Files concerning the activities of Deathstroke were piled high, and his own notes piled higher. A TV newscast was playing in the background and he was drinking his tenth cup of coffee. There was the intonation of " _you need air"_ and he was outside. The roof was tinted in autumnal oranges, and Raven stood by the edge staring down into the water. "Those files are like drugs to you, I wanted the company too" She smiles to the sea, but he feels it. He thinks "Thank you", and she says aloud that he shouldn't worry about it. They sit by the edge and talk about the water and Changeling's newest joke and Kori's latest cooking project.

"And the pudding literally began to move. I wish I was kidding. She said it was _vegetarian_ no less"

"I don't want to believe you, but I've seen some of her "special" puddings. They move and talk! I wonder if Tameranians like their puddings semi conscious when they ceremonially stab them into submission"

"I should probably get back to my work"

She raises a hand, and a tendril of black energy secures him to the floor.

"Very funny"

"Well someone needs to keep you out of that office"

When the alarm clock went off at nine, both titans began to rise from their sleep. Nightwing started slowly to walk to the door, not wanting to confront the situation yet. She detected his fear of the situation.

"I'm not going to blow you up like Kori"

"Haha"

He turns around, and his eyes communicate a kind of confusion. She feels it, and sends her own emotions through the barricade. Eyes meet and go wide as their feelings do the talking. They both had confusion. Dick was frustrated and worried. Raven was confused and absolutely afraid. He even felt the rapid heartbeat radiating from her. He wanted desperately to walk to her and comfort her. She felt his anxiety.

"I don't want to lose you as a friend. We've been together for so long, and now that we're connected, I tread carefully to make sure I don't overstep any boundaries and I just need to-"

"I love you"

Her mind screamed, and all the books in Raven's room flew off the walls. He didn't flinch.

"I know"

and one of the books exploded from the wall, blindsiding Dick right in the temple.

"You know! you and I share a head! of course you know! I can't even keep you out of my portion of mind and you know! That's it!"

He stands up, walks over to her. and puts his arms around her waist. His lips brush against her chakra, and she feels such intense affection, and such extreme warmth. There it is. There is everything he's been holding back. She looks at him.

"You don't need to say it"

"We'll figure it out"

They look at each other. One thinks awkwardly if they should ask about the term "us". The other thinks that their friendship is now off the edge of a knife. They both worry about what happens next.

"Friends for now, we'll think of another title later".

 **Guess what? I still don't particularly like it! I really just wanted to get into the meat and potatoes of the story so I can actually meander with the good stuff. That and I'm evening out the chapters between this and my other story. Check both out and leave reviews telling me how much you love/hate me. I did put a few literary references in the chapter. Can you find them? PM or review with the answers! I finished this at twenty minutes to two in the morning same day as I started. I look forward to your words of support and criticism (so long as it's polite. [yes you]).**


	4. Chapter 4

**I try to find time to write new stuff, so I end up writing new chapters in laundry rooms and foyers around the university. It's kind of novel to walk around in between academics writing fiction. I started this in a laundry room, and hopefully by the end of the chapter my laundry will be done.**

The following weeks were marked by absolutely no change whatsoever. Life went on as per usual, with the giant T in the bay, the villains getting subdued, and the twin birds of the tower (three if Changeling felt it) keeping to themselves. What were they to expect? They weren't exactly the most sociable people. Raven loved her time to ruminate and Richard liked his time to work and exercise. Usually when they spoke, it was in the kitchen over his strong coffee and her bitter black tea. No one really noticed anything different for about a month.

Except Cyborg. Victor was acutely aware of every little occurrence in the tower. If a spec of dust happened to land, he knew it and was able to report it. For the first week since the occurrence, he had no more clue than the rest of them. However on the second week he had been sitting on the couch playing his games, and half listening to the conversations between the "couple" (if they even considered themselves a couple).

"I am by no means _obsessed_ with my training"

"Richard, you are completely and totally, hopelessly obsessed with your training, I'd be surprised if any of the villains trained as hard as you"

"Got to keep the body moving somehow"

"No. You just like the routine"

"Guilty as charged, though it helps in conflict"

She chuckled and began to walk to the door.

"You know Dick, Freud said that the cause of all conflict is _penis envy"_ She joked. Raven never joked. Cyborg couldn't stop himself from coughing his drink all over the couch as she stepped through the doors. He Turned back and saw a mildly flustered, but laughing Nightwing. Something that told him all at once he was in a better mood than normal. Rare. There was something new in the tower, and it smelled of the birds to Victor. He simply needed to prod the right places.

"You seem happy"

"No more than usual Vic"

"You know I see your heartbeat bro, you can't lie to me"

"You'd be wrong, my heartbeat doesn't give away a lie"

"Yeah, but explaining it does"

"Fuck"

"Heh, so spill Dick, what's been going on with you and the _other_ tall dark and brooding?"

Nightwing was floored, his mind raced to think of some small way to get out of the present situation. Honesty being the quickest but most complex route out, he decided that Victor could probably keep a secret. He told him everything.

"About time"

Victor really was a dick, the man saw these things miles away but never actually said anything. For a man prone to screaming "booyah" before waking up in the morning, he was good at keeping his mouth shut. Really Dick didn't want to cause any trouble with his "bro", but really he could have had some brotherly advice. They lived together for christ sakes.

The alarm blared in the tower, signaling the team to stop whatever they were doing and head to the scene. Nightwing sped off into the distance on his bike, outrunning the T-car, a terminally fast Starfire and Changeling without issue. Raven teleported into the passenger seat of the T-car just in time to see Dick catapult himself off his bike and smash his twin escrima sticks into Cinderblock, the mammoth creature occupied with the motorcycle crashing into his shins. Starfire charged a bolt to throw, but Dick was already bearing down on the disoriented man with his akimbo escrima sticks. Two quick hits to the head, followed by a quick series of jabs to Cinderblock's neck had him backing up to avoid any further damage. Raven put up a barrier behind Cinderblock to trip him up. The towering pile of stone began to stumble down, and hit the floor hard when impacts from both Victor and Kori's projectiles slammed into his chest.

On the floor, Changeling took to the sky as an eagle, and began a rapid dive bomb towards the disoriented figure. Twenty feet before a collision, he changed into an elephant, slamming into Cinderblock with the incapacitating force of a freight train. Easy enough.

Nightwing went to make sure that their adversary was truly down, when he suddenly was sent flying into the nearest wall, however, the wall didn't stop him. Dick Grayson went careening through a concrete wall at such a speed that his shattering bones were muffled by the noise of broken cinder and glass. Raven before any of the other team had noticed engulfed cinderblock in black energy while creating a cushion for Dick's landing. It would not stop the major injuries, but it would prevent any further pain. Kori rushed to Nightwing's side attempting to find some way of lifting him that did not cause further pain, but she was still cold, and wanted nothing more than to punch him through the barrier. She ended up floating away to secure the culprit. Raven immediately darted over to Dick to heal his injuries, only to find him standing against a bar, water bottle in one hand, and the other clutching his ribs. She sensed four ribs cracked, his right humerus fractured, and his shoulders dislocated. How he was standing was beyond her, and beyond medical reason.

"Nightwing you prick, lay down and at least let me heal you before you collapse."

"Don't worry Rae, it only hurts when I smile" he chuckles briefly, before coughing up blood.

She reached in her cloak and sends a message to the others signaling that she is taking their leader to the tower. In a dark flash, they are in his room, and he is coated in a brackish cocoon of healing energy. The pain is searing at first, and she, at once out of pity and affection, takes his hand while her energy mends his bones back together, and coagulates the internal bleeding. At least now he is safe. She sits there uncomfortable with the idea that he was in such pain, and still had the gall to stand and try and make a joke. She is absolutely livid that the arrogant impulsive child was too quick for his own-

"You can stop holding my hand now darlin'" he drawls slowly as she snaps her hand back, instantly feeling he sterile chill of the room return. There was a sudden resurgence of heat rising in her cheeks, and without warning a trey sitting on a counter in the room was thrown across the room. Dick chuckled through clenched teeth. Raven even felt a small chuckle come on as the trey seemed to raise itself and go back to its original position. Quiet giggling became hardy laughter with Dick, Raven continued a low chuckle. She got up to leave him to a recovery, wanting desperately to get her pulse under control. Raven stepped once, then again, then was pulled back by a broad pair of arms. her pulse quickened considerably as the windows began to crack and the bed next to them began to levitate. The arms tightened around her slowly, which to Raven was like being crushed by an anaconda. Why did she not mind though?

"You need something?" she whispers, for fear of the tone of her voice/

He simply sighs "thank you" and pulls her to face him.

He is so _warm._ As if his body just radiates the emotion he is conveying, Raven moves her cheek to his chest to come closer to the warmth, blissfully unaware of the entire room floating about. For a moment she feels his weight shift and her heart begins to go crazy, the heat from both their minds radiating through her waist up to her chest and cheeks, incinerating the emotional barriers and causing a whirlpool to form outside the island. She looks up and feels a the wind shoot past her lips as another pair pressed to her cheek.

The whirlpool outside imploded, sending fish and discarded trash all over the city. Raven was frozen in place with Richard Grayson's lips pressed to her cheek and the contents of the medical room orbiting the pair in a mad frenzy. She looks into his eyes and for a moment and slowly, painstakingly leans forward whispering

"I may just reciprocate"

Long past due to fuck with his head, she controls her pulse, has her emotions in complete check, and leans forward, right through him and into her room.

"No fair! I can't teleport through you!"

"You're the one who wanted to tease your girlfriend."

"So you're my girlfriend now?"

 _Shit._

Was she indeed the new girlfriend of the team leader? For one Changeling would be furious with his long withstanding crush on her. Kori would probably throw the both of them through the walls. Hell, it was a completely bad idea.

"Meet me in the Library tonight"

"It's a date"

She blushed, but thought carefully of how to distance herself from him. She sat in her room and began projecting. One by one her base emotions began to creep from the shadows.

"Do we do this?"

"You're a fucking idiot, he's your boss, and your friends wouldn't approve."

"It would only complicate your lives. Both of them."

"What do you care? He's a fool and you're all screwed anyway."

"You should invite him to stay the night more often, but not anything more."

"It can't be a good thing."

" _What do you want though?"_

She waited until ten in the evening, then went to sleep.

It was there in her mindscape that she felt his presence. The books were seemingly leaning towards a small common room. She went into it and found a small door leading to an area she had never actually seen. What was beyond this little door? She thought and thought all the while aware of the bluish energy creeping to her legs, attempting to draw her lovingly through the door. She took the handle, and found herself holding the hand of Dick. He stood with her on the boardwalk overlooking a beach, twilight orange illuminated the horizon. She looked around wondering how he developed the mental power to materialize all of this.

"I didn't, it's a scene in a book I like"

Explains it enough, but wow was it beautiful. He led her down to the beach where the waves moved slowly, undulating away in the background. There was a straw mat, and a book sitting invitingly on the sand. This was too much. Not the scene for rejection. She had to kill her emotion. Numb herself for what she had to do. She looked at him, and began to walk away, back towards a door she made at the end of the pier. Dick began to chase after her, a look of hurt being felt even in his dream. Pain flooded her stomach where that old heat was. An abyss opened and the same stupid voice that was always right asked

" _What do you want?"_

She kissed him.

 **I finally finished it, it took about a week, but at least I finished it. Honestly I find it hard to write for the series, but I still enjoy it when I have the free time. With any hope I'll pull my head out from my colon and actually develop a work ethic so I can actually get things done. Uni is kind of a drag, but such is life. I just need to give it time. Anyway my other story is probably what I'm going to work at next, but I'm not abandoning this story. Until next chapter, please leave your (kind and constructive) criticism. You guys rock.**


	5. Chapter 5

**The university life is pretty bland. Partying and drinking mixed with drugs and pointless sex only goes so far for me, who leans more towards staying in with books and booze that I own. That aside, I'm trying to get my shit together as an academic, so maybe this will get better along with my work.**

The room exploded, not quite with passion but rather with the power of the aether. Dark energy completely unknown to mortal beings poured out of the walls in tidal waves, completely encompassing the room in a sea of unstable energy. A form of loving dark stasis. The very rooms they occupied both filled to capacity in it's mystical stasis as the outside temperature seemingly dropped to freezing chills, and the inside was insulated in intimate swirling warmth. Though Richard Grayson and Raven were not dreaming in their rooms anymore.

He tasted of nothing, and the softness of his face were in stark contrast to the force in which she came to him. The warmth was overwhelming as the second she connected herself to him, he instinctively wrapped his arms around her lower back, trapping her in her own decision. To be fair, she didn't exactly plan this far ahead. almost five seconds after she locked her lips to his, she realised that she literally had not moved from that position. First kiss aside for the empath, she was stunned, the entire scene that likely took Dick weeks to form mentally was annihilated in an instant, the torrents of her unrestrained being tearing the portion of the library apart.

He moved his lips, shifting her upper lip between his, and pulling her closer between his arms. The effect instantaneously materialized as the ground beneath them disappeared, and her mind went blank as she moulded to his shape. They were two lone people in a sea of vast nothingness. His mind radiated not thoughts but feelings, which made her breast heat and her cheeks burn with an intense heat. Her mind echoed sensations around them as small glints appeared in the darkness, and the space warmed up. She began at first to timidly raise her arms between them, creating a small distance between his chest and the swell of her breasts to reach up to his neck, she simply wanted to reach up rather than he lean down. She moved her hands into his hair, and his lips responded in kind.

Then he pulled back.

His hands went to her shoulders, gently pushing her a distance to see her face.

"So that happened" she muttered dryly, saying what she could in her drunken haze.

"It could happen more often you know".

 _Consider this you fool._ She did. The black void about them swirled with possibility, colours and shapes taking form about them as she mentally projected into reality. She had to halt this, as her emotions were projecting more than she meant, squashing two moving shapes out of existence and back into the blackness. They sat for a moment, both in and out of existence and consciousness. Two different people in multiple layers of existence. With little but a film of aether about them to separate them. Even such a film was to much, it was too cruel, too compressed. He walked to the edge of the abyss, what seemed to be miles, was actually a few feet.

Then they woke up.

Richard awoke with a start, though he was not in his room. He looked slowly about the room, and sighed when he realised where he was. He said aloud really, to which she said aloud really, and he looked over where she was curled in a semi conscious haze. small tendrils of black energy receding into her body. There they sat, encompassed in the comfortable silence of their intimacy. Three AM. He began to rise to return to his room, and she stopped him, dragging him back into her arms. She slept well, her head caressed in his hands.

They awoke slightly before eight, or rather she did. He was already stretching at the foot of the bed, a chorus of bones popping and labored stretches waking her from her daze. Richard looked back on Raven, who had sat up in her bed, and began to wipe the sleep from her eyes. With a low groan he jerked his back to some unholy angle and said "morning", to which she leaned over and slid off the bed, walked to the shower and closed the door. It was strange for her to wake up to a face. She woke alone usually, with no real stimulus or emotion. Sleep was like meditation, something she did with no real thought or feeling, an autonomous constant.

The hot water began to wake her up, and she felt clean. Towel clad, and then cloak clad, she exited the room and found that Richard had long since left, a mug of hot darjeeling sitting on her nightstand, steam billowing from the surface.

Richard drank up the last of his coffee, turned on the gym's training protocol, and pulled his escrima from their holsters. Targets and drones immediately sprung to life, brandishing targets and tripwires with mechanical precision. He ran forward with his fighting sticks in an offensive stance, rolling under the first tripwire and striking the first drone with bone breaking force. Three drones shot from the walls, the small circular targets moving at metahuman speeds. He dropped to his knees and swung with two early swipes, the momentum of the first two targets moving right into the path of the clubs, he then rolled backwards and pushed out with his core, sending his entire weight and strength into a kick, breaking the drone into fragments. Tripwires were spread wide in the formation of a window, he used the momentum of the kick to drop to a squat and pounce through the opening. He connected the two endings of his weapons to complete his bo staff.

Then the final drones appeared for the after five minutes of training, the final mechs being advanced humanoid drones, brandishing tasers, dull knives, and energy weapons. He smacked one of the dummies into the range of the ranged assailant, twirling his staff in arcs to collide with the heads and legs of the droids. One swift blow to the head, a stab to the sternum, a kick to the knee, and a flurry of escrima blows and the droids were beaten into programmed submission. Every movement he tried to be a fluid as possible, but it was four seconds off his average. He sighed, and went to the gym, three more hours of training, then he would try again.

Raven in the meantime meditated, her mind in an odd calm. The emotions in the library were sleeping, tired of the recent exertion, and not used to being so powerfully released. Last night had allowed her psyche to flourish and explode with fantasy, the powers materialising out of the aether and into the material realm, she was exhausted. The library was silent. She walked the halls with complete focus as the very structure quietly shifted into new sections, forming a never ending labyrinth of memory and sensation. Dick had once told her the black walls and metal ladders felt dreary and cold. Subconsciously the shelves turned to wood, and hearths began to form. If it was him, she would have to ask how he managed to get that level of focus. It nearly killed her creating the structure, shaping it and altering it? She never got around to understanding.

There were few things that the empath didn't know about the old power she controlled. There were always some primeval secrets that even her father wouldn't delve into, they were older than him, older and without shape. She went to an alcove hidden behind the memories of her childhood. The shelf was adorned with books bound in old leather, and locked in iron. These were experiences she didn't want anyone to see, the sealing and the binding of her power, her training to control it. She thought of the dark times as the shelf began to fade into a cloud of dust and bits of paper.

Dick rolled past the final three drones and struck at their heads, the dented metal falling into a heap on the floor. He sighed and sat where he finished, breathing heavily. He thought of Raven, her hair sprawling out as she slept and how her chest rose and fell as she breathed softly. He thought briefly about that one sentence and its implications. It was powerful. "I love you" he said in between pants. He felt his heart begin to race a bit more. Was this how he felt? He propped himself into one of the old yoga stances Bruce had taught him, and began to focus his mind. His breathing became slow and controlled, and the world around him became more and more lucid, then it began to fade away until he was sitting in an expanse of nothing. His mind was completely focused on the internal, his blood pumping and his lungs expanding, then he was in the library. In his own little section made from his concentration. Hence the interrogation room. He stood from the floor and sat on the folding chair parallel to the table. He opened his hand, and a file began to materialise in small shreds of paper. He opened the document labeled "love life", it was a long time since he looked into his feelings.

She stood before a door covered with small paper seals. The seals were coated with incantations and power older than her or humanity. She took hold of the seal on the doors center and pulled it away. The door slowly opened, and she walked down stairs that appeared beneath her feet as she walked. The stairs went down miles, though to her it took only an instant, her power pulling the very ground of her mindscape to meet her. There sat a single book bound in shadowy leather, its surface bent and shifted, expanded and contracted, grew in length and shrunk. She hesitated to touch it, as the book itself contained power older than existence itself. She had heard that the old monks of Azarath had attempted to copy a leger of fate itself, and incited the wrath of Fate. If this was the tome, she could see if what she was doing was smart, she could see if she would ever be at peace. She looked to the sky, and saw a tall figure clad in darkness, and wore a skull as a mask, the spine dangling as an afterthought. Fear rose from the sides as a single pale finger pointed at her.

Then she was in the library again. The shelves surrounded her, and fear was screaming in the far side of the maze. She thought to herself how some powers are locked away for a reason.

He was sitting in the room when he felt the shift in the building. There was a knock at the door, and he called out come in as she opened the door. The file he held was gone. She looked pale and worried, and he reached out to hold her hand, she took it, and he felt how cold she was.

"let's go out on a date."

"What?"

"That wasn't a yes."

"I just…"

"So it isn't a no either?"

"You caught me off guard."

"Sorry, little flustered."

"Okay, let's go out. I'll see you in an hour.

" _Huh?"_

 **Well this took a while. I'm having a hard time writing for the characters, mainly because I haven't seen the show since it stopped airing. Though for this chapter, I had a cameo from one of the best written DC properties. If you recognise it, call it out in a review. I love hearing from you guys. This chapter took a while, mostly university complications. Until next time.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Working on a new chapter for this story has become something of a scary challenge. Really I don't know how well I make the story, though I have fun on and off as I think of the quality of my work. Oh well, maybe it'll be better by the end. Just about shifting the mind to emulate who the characters are.**

Richard Grayson sat outside on a park bench on the outskirts of Jump City, his hood up to conceal his face from any onlookers. He sits alone at eight o'clock at night in the cold chill of November, checking a wristwatch and drumming his fingers on his jeans with the low tones of some soft guitar song from five years ago.

" _Huh?"_

" _An hour. The park bench outside the pizza shop Kori likes, the one we're not allowed in anymore"_

He checked his watch again and it read five-past-eight, there was a smell like lavender and then the sound of shallow breath.

"Who decides to give their date an hour to get ready?"

"Who meets their date by means of teleportation?"

"I didn't surprise you?"

"Not even a little."

Raven chuckles and asks who asked to go out anyway, Richard can't remember. He motions to his motorcycle (the civilian one) and she gives him a quizzical look before wrapping her arms around his midsection, mentally kicking lust for a remark. The bike roared to life, and in any other circumstance, Raven wouldn't be caught dead on one of the two wheeled death machines. Richard was an exception. She felt the wind in her hair, and receded into herself as the other cars passed. She embraced the sensations around her, the warmth emanating from Richard, the smell of his leather jacket, the chill in the air on her jeans, and the faint hints of cologne coming from his neck. In her heightened sense she heard the birds moving as they roosted for the night and the moisture coming from the ocean off the side of the guardrail. She shivered briefly and opened her eyes when she felt the bike slow down.

They had stopped at a red light, and he turned to ask if she was okay, they had been on an hour long. Raven blushed and said she had spaced out, he chuckled before focusing back on the road. She was about to ask where they were going when he stopped in a small clearing bordering a suburb at what she suspected was the end of the city. He parked and led her down a gravel path to a small restaurant no larger than a house.

There were only about six tables out and set in the dining room, and the waiter was a tall man of about thirty two, who lovingly talked through the specials in detail that said he wasn't working at the restaurant for the job. He walked away to give them time to read the menu, but she noticed that there weren't any more patrons eating in the restaurant.

"Are we the only people in this place?"

"I mean Dick Grayson is coming to a chic restaurant with his dashing girlfriend late at night and not making the spectacle of renting it out?"

"Don't you think it's a bit excessive?"

Then she thought of the privacy and the intimacy of the small eatery, and how perhaps the voices of other noisy patrons rambling on over soft music would ruin the atmosphere of the little place they currently occupied. She shuttered and then muttered simply "never mind, thank you".

He smirked, and ordered wine for the two of them, speaking italian to the waiter, who responded in kind. She never knew he spoke italian, and so she went on a moment to test him.

"Kuinka monella kielellä tiedät?"

"Miért nem találsz ki?"

"мне любопытно"

"Bien"

Then they erupted with laughter, languages and dialects ranging from Cantonese to Romani ringing in each other's ears, and his undulating laughter filling the wood walls of the restaurant. She briefly heard the small intonation of _I love that soft giggle_ , and she hesitated for a moment before sending a sample of her emotion to him, and his face lit with a slight blush.

The waiter returned once more, asking in the most precise and practiced manner what they would like to eat. He said he would like the special for the fish, and she ordered a pasta dish with seafood tossed in. Five minutes of idle banter passed and they chatted about how Garfield was trying to act more manly, and how Vic blew out his tire while developing a car upgrade, and with the team's real names the average listener-in wouldn't think twice about the mundane antics that the great Nightwing and Raven of the titans were speaking of. The waiter walked out of the kitchen brandishing two small soup bowls containing a broth that both agreed they would come back for.

They finished their meal, and took coffee on the balcony of the second floor dining room. The sky was pitch black, and the moon stood among the clouds as a stark contrast to the inky blackness of the clouds. They drank coffee, and without thinking or noticing, their hands began to lock together. Richard glanced down at Raven and for a moment she felt a tinge of her baser emotions coming forward and whispering things that made her face too red to look back. She instead smiled to herself, and allowed her thumb to stroke his fingers. He paid the bill, telling her mentally if she touched her wallet he would make her walk home, and Raven teleported them back to their garage to save him the drive.

When the barrier she erected around them dissipated, they agreed to meet on the roof in ten. She teleported once more, but instead found herself in the library, surrounded by shelves which began to melt and twist and turn to ash. She found herself standing in a rapidly devolving void of her emotions, who seemed to push back at an indomitable force. Every shelf that rose from the void was immediately faded back to nothingness, and then she saw the source of the void. Within her dream realm was the door she had left, and it was open, the void seeming to pulse forth from the opened rift. From this opening what looked like a spinal column rolled and shifted in the darkness, leading to a pair of reddish lenses atop a skull. The figure stood at the threshold of the door, and walked towards her.

Her emotions went haywire, the multicolored robes sprang forth from the remains of the library, sending massive quantities of energy at the form in razors and spears and shackles. The figure raised a glove hand, and the shadowy cloak billowed out into the void about their feet. At first the emotions stopped, and then turned to dust. Raven stood frozen in place and the great figure removed a glove and pointed a pale hand before saying

"Demon, I mean you no harm, though there are spaces in my realm in which none may meddle. Your powers mean nothing in my dreaming, and your door, as those of Azar had long learned, should stay sealed. However within your sleep I shall intrude no longer, remember my sigil spawn of Trigon, and remember that some doors are locked for a reason".

With that the figure removed the helmet and turned back behind the door, a head of wild black hair greeting her view before the seals about the door reformed threefold. The void disappeared with the closing of the door, and Raven was alone in the library once more. She would read into this later. She left the realm and was then standing alone on her giant T shaped rooftop, gazing at the full moon.

For all of a second.

Richard walked up, a wave of contented emotions washing over her panic, and the warmth of his smile made her forget. He said it was time to head to bed before training, no sexual tone from him. She briefly felt a warmth rise in her chest, and her legs fidgeted a bit before they walked back to the residential floors. They reached her room and he said to her

"I never thought I would end up on a date with the tower's other bird"

"I mean it won't be the first time"

"How brazen"

"I can't believe we kissed"

 _but it was a dream._

They both heard it, but Raven was the one who acted, standing for a moment on her toes to press her lips slowly to his, and before he responded she phased right through the door and into her bed. He sighed, and then thought _goodnight._ She was softly smiling to herself in her bed, thinking that perhaps she might actually be able to have a boyfriend.

 _I have a boyfriend._

 **This chapter is a bit shorter than the usual, and I personally don't like that. Though I got my major cameo in, you guys who got it please shout it out in the reviews. I'm really happy to be doing this rather than studying for the finals that are going to kick my teeth in. Managed to work some good action in this one, and now I get to write a good chapter for Dreamscape. Keep any opinions and constructive criticisms out there, I love hearing it. You guys have a lovely time, and if I don't update this beforehand, merry Christmas.**


	7. Story Update

Story Update-

Hello my dear readers, been a while hasn't it? This is just an update to say that my stories aren't dead, but on hiatus. I took some time after my first year of uni ended to sort out a little business and focus on some of my other hobbies, and it's been a lot of fun. With any hope though, I'll pump out more chapters for both of my fictions by the end of my summer holiday. Also the next chapters will be devoted to a friend of mine. I hope you've all been enjoying my work so far, and I'll try to make it better as I go. Maybe after a couple of replays/rewatches I'll have an even better flow.

-J

Unrelated note: I'm thinking of doing a romance story for Durarara! Between Anri and Mikado, should I take the time or no?


	8. Chapter 7

**Well I definitely didn't update before Christmas, but I'm still going, and I have so much more in store for you my reader. Hopefully I can find the time to start my other projects, I've been taking up hobbies faster than I can actually get around to them, mostly because college is kind of a drag when you're not huge on parties. That said I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

Dick woke up with beams of sunlight in his eyes, not a total inconvenience, though the fact that the sun literally was in his eyes was cause for some irritation. He groaned under his breath and turned from the sun, sitting up and thinking of what he would do on one of his excruciatingly rare days off. He took three days a year to himself and every time he would call Alfred to touch base he would get the same earful about "only three days of three-sixty-five" and "Master Bruce's stress" and how he should "maybe bring a girl home for once". That stuck with him. He smiled deviously and projected his thought straight to her. _Maybe._ He really hated that when he woke up she wasn't next to him, though that only would take time, and she had to be ready.

 _Maybe what birdie?_

 _You doing anything today?_

 _No? Why?_

 _Well have you ever met my Dad?_

Well he was always the more gutsy of them. Though he was surprised when he opened the door and rather than walking out, she walked in, a mild, wide eyed look in her eyes. She didn't say anything at first, opting to instead walk to his bed, then his bookshelf, then his chair before deadpanning at him "so you want me to meet Bruce?"

"How'd you?"

He stopped before she could answer his stupid question and instead intoned (literally) _that's right, we share a head._ At least he got a soft smile, before her expression changed back to it's usual. He could feel the agitation radiating off of her and he understood why.

"You're anxious about meeting Bruce?"

"More anxious about meeting Batman"

"So is that a-"

"No, I'd still like to meet him"

"We'll leave in a few hours"

He packed his bags with a spare change of his Nightwing uniform, a few shirts, jeans, and his escrima sticks on top before tossing it by the tower's evacuation exits. Ironically it was more or less used as a vacation exit seeing as as the years went on Vic only made the place more secure. Hell he thought, if it were any more secure it could withstand a nuke.

Meanwhile Raven was stressing herself out over the trip. They were taking a car which was nice considering how she _hated_ the deathtrap Dick always insisted on riding, but she simply didn't know what to pack. She tossed in her spare uniform first, then paced about the room . _Think, think. Bruce Wayne, mansion, lots of money, classy, batman, possibly the most dangerous human in the world._ She threw an assortment of clothes into her bag and stopped by her shelf on the way out her door to grab a book. Something bigger than butterflies were nibbling at her stomach at the situation. She had never thought that at her age, with her half demonic status, that the most terrifying thing to her would be meeting the parents. Surely enough though, when she walked out to the exit tunnel Richard was standing there, radiating the same confident calm he always did. "Let's go".

The walk under the tunnel was quiet enough, and when they reached a dead end, Richard dialed a small keypad hidden behind what she assumed was a false pipeline on the ceiling. The brick and mortar walls began to shift, and then there they were. A completely unassuming parking garage on the city bay. They tossed their bags into the trunk of what Raven thought was a far too economical car for the taste of Dick, but before she could ask, he turned to open the passenger seat door and said simply, "Alfred insists that I drive this when I visit home, it's inconspicuous". She mentally thanked Alfred, though not before she had Dick explain who he was.

The car was deceptively fast, and the moment it left the city limits they were moving at a breakneck speed towards Gotham's own Wayne Manor. Though to Raven, at least being in a car made it comfortable. They idly chatted about Richard's family, old cases he had done with the caped crusader, and the library that was their entwined minds. Before long though the car was silent, and she took the time to meditate, every so often he would chime into her mind with some update on how close they were.

Dick would every so often look to her, and see the same expression she would get whenever she meditated. She sat relaxed in the cloth of the seat, jeans and sweater not shifting in the slightest as her irises seemingly disappeared, her mouth shifted ever so slightly in some old mantra that kept her confined in a meditative stasis. Nothing out of the usual, just a drive into the country with his beautiful demonic girlfriend. He pulled into a service station to fill up his car. He did so quietly as to not disturb her trance, though his ulterior motive was to try a new trick he had thought of to surprise the empath. He started the gas pump and slid back into the driver's seat before closing his eyes and focusing, restraining a smirk.

Raven walked through the halls of her library as she usually did, her emotions shifting between the books on the shelves. Rarely did she ever simply walk through for no reason, though given her circumstance in the car she figured she would sit down with her emotions and maybe talk with them about her, and she hated the fact that it was still so new and exciting, boyfriend. All around her the books shifted and her mood soured when she thought of the impending meeting. He was after all the greatest detective ever, a member of the justice league, and no doubt he knew about her origins. How was she going to introduce herself? How would she win the trust of the Batman? The wooden walls of the library began to darken and Raven ascended a flight of stairs that passed the now permanently sealed doors. She herself had made sure to place barriers around the entrance. Whatever lurked there she was not adamant about seeing again, and if Richard found it, god knows what that _thing_ would do to him. She decided on a change of scenery and the stairs slowly changed color until she was walking up marble stairs, then rough stones, then a steep gravel incline, before she reached the top of a grassy hill with a simple towel laying on the ground. Last time she was here there was no towel, leave it to Dick.

From the great height she was at the expanse that was her and his mental scape seemed to stretch endlessly. Technically this was a visualization made from her dreams imbued with her power, but she still valued the shifting expanses of her own little world.

 _Our little world_. She almost leaped out of her skin when she felt a long and very strong arm scoop her into his lap, though when she smelled his cologne and felt his lips on her temple she eased into him.

"Shouldn't you be driving" she said aloud. His tone was relaxed when he said that he stopped for gas. Though she could feel an uncertainty in him. She was going to ask what was wrong, though she was more curious on how he got into the library without dreaming. He was getting better with their bond, frighteningly fast. He spun her around so that she was sitting cross legged in his crossed legs and said earnestly "don't worry about Bruce, just be yourself and he'll warm up to you".

Then they both heard a loud click and simultaneously they disappeared from the library, leaving Raven's emotions staring into the distance, a lone white face staring back. Dick got out of the car and took the receipt from the machine before once again driving down the expressway to Gotham. The city limits finally being within sight of the couple. As they approached the exit, Dick reached for his phone and pressed a singular button before an older man answered "Master Richard! It's been far too long. How have you been?" She could feel joviality radiating off of him, and his smile remained on his face as he replied "Alfred I hope that Bruce was expecting me, I'm finally taking you up on that special circumstance". She heard the old man laugh and then hang up as they pulled off into a more heavily forested area of the city outskirts. The road was paved, though there were no other houses on the road, save Wayne Manor looming in the distance. They pulled through an iron gate, down the driveway, out the car, to the front door with their bags, and before he could move any faster to open the door a slender old man opened the door and wrapped his arms around him. "Master Richard how empty the house has been without your presence! You've grown so muscular! This must be your lovely girlfriend!"

She stood there slack-jawed as the fearless and stern leader of the Titans met Alfred's embrace by lifting him off the ground, laughing as he did, before putting his bags down and swapping pleasantries with the man. Alfred's white-moustache-accented smile followed him out of the room with promises of lunch, while a much larger form stepped down the stairs to greet them. The man stood much in the same way a brick wall did, she looked at him and tried to feel the emotions radiating off of him. Nothing, as far as psychics went, Bruce Wayne was like a void in the room, reading him would be impossible.

"It's good to see you Dick" he turned to her then "this must be your girlfriend I've heard so much about".

"Uhh" she stuttered before backtracking mentally and refocusing "Yes, I'm Raven... pleased to meet you"

 _Smooth._

 **I guess I'm back, though it certainly took a while. As always your criticisms are appreciated and I look forward to updating my stories. I head back to actual university soon so maybe a consistent work schedule will make me more productive. Freelance work really deregulates life. I might go back and edit this one as it has been a while since writing.**


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